Pages

24 June, 2010

Dumbfuckery du Jour

And the dumb marches on, as Randy Brogdon, Oklahoma state senator and gubernatorial hopeful, believes his electoral chances will be ever so improved if he says stupid shit like this:

Instead of placing blame on BP for the massive environmental and economic disaster that it has caused in the Gulf of Mexico, Brogdon claimed that government is “the problem” and that the spill is a “perfect example of why government should never be involved in the private sector”:

In Oklahoma, where oil and natural gas drive the state’s economy, tea party favorite Randy Brogdon, a Republican candidate for governor, said federal involvement in the BP disaster is only making the situation worse.

“This is a perfect example of why government should never be involved in the private sector,” said Brogdon, a state senator campaigning on limited federal government.

“Government is not the solution. It’s the problem. The more government tries to get in and regulate the free market, the worse things become.”

Of course, BP’s oil disaster may have resulted from too little — not too much — government involvement. Although the exact cause of the disaster is still unknown, there is a growing mountain of evidence that suggests BP’s owncorporatenegligence, combined with Bush-era regulators turning a blindeye to safety violations, are what created the environment that led to the oil spill.

I think someone needs to give Mr. Brogdon a copy of Upton Sinclair's The Jungle and explain what the free market looked like before government involvement in the private sector. Then again, I don't know if any amount of gut-churning reality can penetrate the skull of someone so thick-headed as to believe too much regulation and oversight caused BP's well to go boom.

People like this seem to have never experienced corporations in real life. Those of us who have understand that without government standing in their way, they wouldn't have to think of creative ways to fuck us over for fun and profit - they'd just get straight on with the raping and pillaging. And if he believes the free market will provide the proper oversight, he can peruse this missive to see just how effective consumer outrage is likely to be.

After President Obama successfully secured $20 billion in escrow for Gulf Coast victims of BP's oil spill, the right tried a variety of attacks. By now, they're familiar -- it was a "shakedown"; it was "extortion"; it was "unconstitutional."

But Thomas Sowell kicked things up a notch, taking the right-wing whining about the president fighting for small businesses and struggling families to a whole new level this week.

[D]uring the worldwide Great Depression, the German Reichstag passed a law "for the relief of the German people." That law gave Hitler dictatorial powers that were used for things going far beyond the relief of the German people -- indeed, powers that ultimately brought a rain of destruction down on the German people and on others. If the agreement with BP was an isolated event, perhaps we might hope that it would not be a precedent. But there is nothing isolated about it.

Yep, we've moved past the "shakedown" phase, and have entered the "Hitler-esque" stage. Oh good.

Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-TX) drew a comparison between President Obama and Hitler in a speech on the House floor last night that quoted a recent op-ed by conservative columnist Thomas Sowell. In his op-ed, Sowell argued that Obama’s call for BP to set up an escrow account to help oil spill victims in the Gulf was a sign that “American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes.”

Gohmert praised Sowell as a “brilliant man” and used his words to warn that there are “useful idiots” who want President Obama to be a dictator...

Yes, that essentially is the argument. It was that little bit of regulation that caused all the problems. Government was involved, so that's the reason things are screwed up. Molestus hoc, ergo propter hoc.